A good friend of mine had a 2000 camaro. He recently sold it to a kid that has had it for about 2 weeks. The kid is having all kinds of issues with it.

Here are the specs

2000 Camaro
90K miles on original shortblock
patriot 5.3 heads
TSP231 cam
6 speed car thats been converted from auto
other supporting mods

When my friend owned the car it ran flawlessly with this set up for 50K miles. This kid bought it and he can't drive and he said he smashed the rev limiter a bunch of times. He said it started ticking so they brought the car to me. Obviously I figured it was in the valve train. He brought me the car and I could hear a tick/knock coming from the passengers side. I pulled the valve covers and looked for busted valve spring ect. I pulled the rockers and noticed that one of the valves was slightly pitted at the top. I went ahead and pulled the heads changed out that valve, put in all new lifters and rockers that I had around the shop for good measure. NO visible marking on the pistons. Fired it up and it was dead silent. Figured we had the problem fixed. I told him to go out and drive it. He came back about 5 minutes later and the noise was back. It is also smoking like a freight train from the passengers side breather, (the car has 2 passenger side valve covers and both have breathers). It's white smoke. The car only knocks and smokes after its fully warmed up. Only smokes and makes noise out of the one side. The problem is I didn't get to see if it smoked before I tore it apart because I never let it get up to full temp because I knew I was going to be working on it but I assume it did. It does not smoke at all out of the exhaust. Good oil pressure and it's not over heating. My notebook took a **** so I can't hook up my hp tuners to check for knock, ect. It was getting WAY late so I didn't do a compression test. I guess that's the next step. Busted ring maybe?? Why does it only do it after it's warm? Any ideas?

 

Do you have a sniffer for combustion byproducts in the coolant?

 

No I do not. I didn't see anything but that doesn't mean it's not there.

 

This sounds like an almost identical situation...

https://ls1tech.com/forums/showthrea...e+out+breather

 

You did check the pushrods and valves to see if they were bent right?

 

Yes sir. They were all fine. I checked everything over all valves are straight and seal up just fine. Pushrods were all straight.

 

heating up causes expansion, white smoke is coolant IIRC

 

So wouldn't white smoke be coming out of the exhaust if it's coolant getting into the cylinder?

 

I figured that if it was coolant it would come out of the exhaust. I'm not getting anything out of the exhaust. Also it only does it once it warms up. And what's with the noise? I wouldn't think a head gasket would cause a loud knocking unless the cylinder was filling up with coolant but if that was the case the plugs would be wet which they aren't and it would come out of the exhaust.